918 Editors’ Table. 
EDITORS’ TABLE. 
EDITORS: E. D. COPE AND J. S. KINGSLEY. 
Economy pushed to its extreme becomes niggardliness. The 
appropriation for a Governmental Zoological Garden at the Capital 
has been defeated in the House of Representatives, not because of 
any objection to the proposition, to the location, to the site, nor to 
the necessity, but solely because of the money it would cost. It 
was simply the wail of a miser. The benefit from, in fact necessity 
for, a Governmental Zoological Garden was conceded. The time 
and opportunity were apropos. It was not denied that the manage- 
ment was in proper hands. No argument was made against the 
project save that it would cost money, and this was played ad nau- 
seam. The opponents of the project raised their voices and fairly 
wept over this great expenditure of money. 
We attempt no homily on the duties of a legislator, nor to explain 
how it is sometimes as much his duty to spend money as it is at 
others to save it. The United States, with a greater territory» 
greater riches, and with undoubtedly greater opportunities, is behind 
third and fourth-rate kingdoms in the matter of zoological gardens. 
The Materiaux pour Vhistorie de P Homme for August has an article 
entitled “ Extinction of the Buffalo,’ in which it notices a capture 
or massacre, in the Territory of Arizona, of a herd of buffalo (Bos 
americanus), and says, “The race is now practically extinct.” It 
laments that these are not the only zoologic forms in America which 
have become so, and closes, “ The Republic of the United States of 
America is less careful of its opportunities, and pays less regard to 
its duty to science than does the Russian Empire, where the Euro- 
pean bison of pre-historic times lives under the protection of the 
Czar.” 
If the two or three gentleman who led the opposition, and the 
fifty-six members who voted with them, shall continue the defeat 
of the project, and thus the buffalo become an extinct animal, with 
others now threatened, the descendants of these gentlemen will have 
Jittle cause for pride in this act of their ancestors. 
There never will be a time when this project can be carried out 
